2025 Conscious-Technology Seems to be developing a Mind of Its Own1
By Jerome Clayton Glenn
Abstract
How might a future Global Brain, Conscious-Technology, or Metaman emerge from
today? A scenario is presented as of one possible story. It is not necessarily positive or
negative, but illustrates many issues that should be considered to improve the chances of
a more desirable future.
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As we enter the year 2025 we seem to be on the threshold of a new era that integrates
humanity and it’s technology into a continuum that has been called ConsciousTechnology, Global Brain, and/or Metaman. Some speculate that humans will eventually
be left behind on earth as its advanced technology migrates beyond the solar system
independent of the Sun, in the same way that the human embryo develops, is born, grows
up, and eventually becomes independent of its mother. Others believe that the merger of
human and machine with have so many variations that speciation will have occurred
within humanity ranging from space adapted interlinked cyborgs to genetically altered
ocean adapted organisms called Mertechs. Regardless of what alternative futures actually
occur, we are more consciously designing our own evolution, or so we think.
All seems possible today, yet when we look back just fifty years, most people in 1975
would never have believed that by the year 2000, millions of people would
simultaneously search millions of computer records through many intermediaries at no
cost in less than one second. Similarly, little in the literature in just twenty-five years ago
took seriously that the collective human-machine intelligence would be dramatically
increased as it has today. But customized neural nutritional supplements, genetic
medicine, universal cognitive development access, and TEF (Tele-Everywhere-Feedback
protocol) with CyberNow clothing and glasses achieved miracles in human performance,
social stability, and economic growth. The forces behind Moore’s law not only
accelerated computer capacity, they also accelerated all phenomena connected to
computers.
1. Must of this scenario was written by the author originally for the 2003 State of the Future based on
research by the Millennium Project supported by the Office of Science, US Department of Energy. See:
http://acunu.org
TEF-CyberNow affected or connected only about 10% of the world in 2015, but by 2025
the economies of scale brought the price so low that many people were given CyberNow
glasses or clothing free as part of employee benefits, rights of citizenship, insurance
policies, marketing programs, and credit systems. This accelerated diffusion within
poorer countries. UNICEF, the World Health Organization, UNESCO, and international
development agencies also helped with distribution in poorer regions. Speech recognition
and synthesis, integrated in nearly everything, made technology transfer far more
successful than originally deemed possible by the UN Development Program’s Televolunteers, who did much to help the poorest regions understand and use the benefits
from these new technologies. As a result, many remote villages in the poorest countries
have cyberspace access for tele-education, tele-work, tele-medicine, tele-commerce, and
tele-nearly-anything. The emergence of a global human-computer system seems on its
way.
By 2025, nearly 70% of the world was connected via TEF and 44% wore some form of
CyberNow at least once a week.2 More than half the world spent more than half its
waking hours in cyberspace. At this rate, it would be only a matter of time until the selforganizing properties of intelligent software complete the connectivity of humanity,
except for those remaining neo-Luddites forming and living in historical theme parks,
which enriched the world with historical and intellectual depth. Many believe we have
now achieved the state of a functioning global brain: both in terms of humans acting like
neurons connected via computers making a global brain, and in terms of self-organizing
properties of globally distributed software giving birth to complex adaptive behavior
beyond the ability of humans to understand. Others expect technology to go even further
to integrate our bodies as well as brains into an unprecedented organism or Metaman.
People used to think that Internet’s World Wide Web and the Semantic web were the
most powerful forces for global change in history, but TEF-CyberNow went far beyond
those crude connections of text and images by becoming a continuous virtual reality, as
user-friendly as breathing. The interlinked pages via Internet in the late 20th century was a
new associated memory system for the global brain. As software agents began to move
around the Internet and evolve in response to human feedback, their patters and
connections seemed like the beginnings of thought in a global brain.
Between 2010 and 2015 the massive international S&T cooperative research program on
human-computer intelligence was initiated by the largest research transinstitution in
history (composed of governments, corporations, NGOs, universities, and international
organizations). It was named the Brain Trans-science Service (BTS). This identified the
factors and systems that ultimately enhanced human-machine collective intelligence.
Since the effort was more complex than the Human Genome Project, older organizational
structures were not acceptable to the many different actors. Finally they had to form a
transinsitution to prove that it would be of common benefit to all of humanity.
2. Estimates averaged from Millennium Project’s Global S&T Panel’s responses to Round 2
<http://www.acunu.org/millennium/st-scenarios-rd2.html>
Major funding came from the United States, China, the European Union, India, Japan,
Russia, and United Korea. The initial corporate leaders were Oil World, GM, Mitsubishi,
ChinaMind, IBM, Merc, MicroWorld, Nestlé, and Sony.
An NGO association of university, government, and private research centers around the
world was specially created as the NGO participant in BTS. The transinstitution was
incorporated in Switzerland, and its inaugural tele-meeting was held under the auspices
of the Office of the UN Secretary-General, UNESCO, and the International Science and
Technology Organization (ISTO). The R&D collaborators of Brain Trans-science Service
produced the foundation for inexpensive genetic medicine, customized neural nutritional
supplements, and universal cognitive development access, and they built synergies with
TEF and CyberNow that enhanced cognitive development even in many remote areas or
the world. BTS also helped further multidisciplinary approaches among the natural and
social sciences, engineering, and medicine. An offshot of this was ecoscience that tries to
combine hardware, software, and mindware into a single normative framework to further
human, cyber, and environmental conditions.
Businesses and universities that used the early brain-computer interfaces prospered and
stimulated more R&D for even better products, which led to wider public acceptance.
However, it was in the area of entertainment where the prices fell fastest and the numbers
of users really accelerated. Global cyber games engaged millions. The distinctions among
work, play, and leisure blurred in cyberspace. Some thought it was not natural and
resisted, but many parents around the world who wanted the best for their children
pushed for the use of TEF and CyberNow in schools and home entertainment.
Once people believed it was possible to enhance human intelligence by computer
augmentation, the corporate R&D race took off to create the mass products for everyone
to use. Just as Mosaic and Netscape accelerated the use of the World Wide Web in the
1990s, TEF and CyberNow accelerated the human-machine continuum in the early
2020s. By 2025 CyberNow clothing monitored health to alert the user and medical
systems about potential health problems.
Computational chemistry, simulation biology, and genetic engineering customized
medicine and reduced cost. Tele-medicine became a commonplace for over half the
world, who diagnosed and treated themselves for many problems via DNA diagnostic
options through their CyberNow clothing. Genetic medicine eliminated inherited diseases
from the human gene pool. Tele-care, fought by many, was now more accepted as TEF
and CyberNow systems improved. Low-cost robotic systems provided medical care
support in both homes and hospitals. It did not replace human contact, but with 2 billion
people over the age of 60 and the growing shortages of medical personnel, it was
inevitable that these Tele-care systems would augment medial staff. Even poorer nations
unable to handle an aging population were forced to introduce Tele-care.
Nanotechnology lowered the cost and increased the reliability of many products, which
contributed to improving the standard of living—even in the poorest areas of the
developing world. For example, nanotech drill bits and tubes allowed deeper water
access, preventing massive water shortages. This bought some time to develop more
lasting solutions, such as nanotech desalinization filters and precision agriculture.
TEF and CyberNow provided the basis for the best educational programming the world
could make. Since there was a vast array of materials and beliefs, standards of education
differed around the world. It became common practice to spend $100 million to develop
just 10 minutes of educational software that was used by 2 billion people—a cost of 5¢
per person. Many of these programs were subsidized by UNESCO, national development
agencies in the poorer regions, and advertising agencies in the richer areas. The most
effective science education programs were the interactive cyber games with role-playing
possibilities for millions of students inside virtual reality bio-chemical reactions created
by a Disney-MIT spinoff. Students with the best bio-chemical strategies were offered
jobs and scholarships. Other programs for the slightly younger students were BANG
(Bits, Atoms, Neurons & Genes), a primer for fundamental science concepts that relied
mainly on advanced VR representations, and the Evolutionary Game, which encouraged
pupils to role-play various parts throughout Earth’s history.
These games allowed the student to go from a state of relative ignorance to the cutting
edge of the field through on-line data, information, and knowledge. Problem sets were
continually changed not only by teachers, but also by students who programmed their
own experiments within the software’s simulation environment. As students progressed
toward the state of current scientific research, they might begin interacting with real
scientists working on real problems. Activities that taught electronics contained means
for students to construct circuits, and if they met specifications, their files could be
exported to actual professionals. Hence, this was a source of job offers.
Some people resisted all this change and hence, unfortunately, there were still poorly paid
teachers in broken down classrooms with out-of-date textbooks, providing expensive and
inferior education in some of the poorer regions of the world. But for those who
welcomed it, the computer-aided brain became as normal to many children around the
world as the desktop computer was to their parents and the telephone was to their
grandparents.
These educational systems diagnosed cognitive difficulties via analysis of inquiry
patterns and automatically altered the curriculum. They also diagnosed the potential for
violent anti-social behavior, and automatically notified child development and mental
health authorities, which may have prevented many forms of destructive behaviors—even
terrorism—later in life. Many accepted the loss of privacy for the gain in human security.
Others did not, but their protests were ineffective, and some joined neo-Luddite historical
theme parks.
Progress in neuroscience and biocomputing provided the technology for implanting
computer chips into the human brain, but most people did not like this concept and
preferred to continue improvements in the TEF-CyberNow alternative. Yet success with
nano-bio-transceivers for health maintenance, flowing with blood through the veins, gave
rise to new speculation about future nano-computer-transceivers that can flow through
the ventricles in the brain’s tissues to enhance brain functioning.
Customized intelligent personal software agents became integrated with so many systems
that it was no longer clear who was giving instructions and who was answering questions.
Sometimes it seemed that human brains were like little neurons in a global cyber brain.
Although human and machine intelligence are quite different, the synergies between them
accelerated collective human-computer intelligence. Some scientists trying to reverseengineer the human brain and complete mathematical models of cognitive processes
claimed that their work would make it possible to accelerate learning dramatically, create
robots with a form of self-awareness, create real artificial intelligence, build a completely
artificial human brain, store backup copies of human brains that could be later
downloaded into an artificial brain, and create a self-evolving human-machine globalbrain.
Computers had the same computational capacity as the human brain and were able to
simulate much of the neural activity of an entire human brain. The senses of sight,
hearing, smell, taste, and touch were all duplicated in virtual reality communications.
Rumors persisted that some humans used some AI-created technologies to copy their
brain patterns into computer simulations in which their copies or uploads “lived” in some
VR version of paradise.
Meanwhile, the International Science and Technology Organization evolved over the
years into a body with a unique influence on S&T developments. ISTO was organized
and managed differently than previous UN institutions.
With a small staff and large information systems, it was more accurate to think of the
organization as a framework for others to use and to contribute improvements to rather
than a bureaucracy holding up decisions. Its information systems were composed of data
banks of other international organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs,
universities, and independent researchers into the Semantic Web.
ISTO helped organize the world’s S&T knowledge, information, and data. It made the
content in these systems far more user-friendly through state-of-the-art virtual reality
interfaces and knowledge visualization software. For example, it became possible to
quickly “swim” through three-dimensional menus, understand relationships through
knowledge visualizations, and “dive” into specific research status with a full range of
threats and opportunities detailed via linked data bases of virtual reality around the world.
Someone could quickly zoom in from a general overview of carbon sequestration to some
cost/benefit/time-to-impact calculations from several experimental nanotech carbon
processing labs working on fossil fuel energy plants.
It was not ISTO staff who updated the information, but a vastly complex set of national
academies’ peer review teams, professional self-organized groups, university consortia,
corporate R&D associations, and combinations of all these, each updating very specific
elements of the system. But ISTO staff gave the information a comprehensive cyber skin
that made it feel like one giant integrated system of the world’s S&T knowledge.
Constant cross-referencing and feedback by both humans and software agents continued
to improve the accuracy, utility, and intelligence of ISTO’s systems, yet, the artificial
processes created “knowledge” and new instructions that seemed to be developing a mind
it its own.
Multinational corporations with large R&D budgets were interested in getting their
product and research intentions well documented and clearly communicated to the world,
so they cooperated from the beginning in establishing ISTO. Corporations used it as a
source of information to help establish strategic alliances for better international market
access and lower production costs.
As intelligence increased, science and technology accelerated, which in turn further
accelerated collective intelligence. With an increased number of intelligent people, the
rate of scientific discoveries and technological applications became so fast that by the
time government regulations were put into place, the science and technological capacities
had moved far beyond the conditions called for in the original regulations. In addition,
S&T activities outlawed in one country quickly moved to others. Globalization and
advanced cyberspace made it simple to bypass rules by constantly redistributing activities
around the world.
Although ISTO started as an information system, governments began to rely on it so
heavily that it became an informal regulatory and priority-setting agency by default. In
the past, sustainable development depended on the ability of government leaders to
implement intelligent vision. ISTO became more dependent on the synergies and
feedback among computer systems. Yet it was unclear if ISTO would continue to be so as
S&T dramatically accelerates even further in the coming years, developing what may
become a “mind of its own.” For example, some potential disasters were successfully
avoided by early warning software that had been integrated into various products and
processes. In addition to providing early warning, this intelligent technology managed
self-diagnostic and repair systems, and also prompted governments and international
organizations to act on their responsibilities. Which brought up the question of who was
really in charge—humans or technology? It seemed the global brain would evolve
beyond the ability of humans to understand and control it. In fact some speculated that it
was not a global brain but many brains that were in some communication with each other.
Could the humans stay in the loop?
It also brought up the question of who determines the directions in which science evolves
and to what end technology is applied. Such questions were raised in university courses
on S&T ethics required for science and engineering students. Students also had to learn
codes of conduct and sign the Scientist’s Oath.
This interest in ethics resulted in the growth of S&T special interest groups (SIGs) linked
with intelligent software that created standards and attempts to monitor the S&T
enterprise, as part of ISTO’s effort to manage scientific risk. No one really “allowed”
these SIGs to monitor S&T; they emerged and generated their own power by the quality
and responsibility of their work.
ISTO was originally designed to make it easier for anyone to gain access to the world’s
S&T knowledge, along with conjecture about future S&T threats and opportunities. As a
result, unexpected as it was, scientists and engineers became less likely to pursue
dangerous activities since the bright light of publicity and information made apparent
who was pursuing science for the betterment of the human condition in a rational way
and who was flouting the rules. This exposure influenced funding, university hiring,
collegial cooperation, and publication within the world S&T community. Basic science
still remained relatively free and benefited from this international information utility.
Because the rate of scientific discoveries and technological applications became so fast,
some governments became afraid that other countries would develop faster than their
own. They tried to create international regulations to slow down S&T. But these efforts
failed, just as the anti- computer communications efforts failed in the 1980s. Anti-science
backlash movements were also attempted, but the speed of S&T developments was just
too fast and the objections became irrelevant.
Of the 7.8 billion people in 2025, just under 1.4 billion lived in India and just over 1.4
billion lived in China. As incomes rose in these two nations, the global demand for
animal protein outstripped conventional supply until breakthroughs in stem cells for meat
production successfully produced muscle tissue on a massive scale without the need to
grow animals. This lowered costs and the environmental impacts of protein production.
Meanwhile, other forms of genetically modified foods accounted for easily 50% of the
world’s food because nanotechnology and bio-engineering merged—creating all kinds of
organic compounds that were considered safe. This made it possible to produce more
food at lower cost. Farmers were running out of agricultural land in any case and hence
could not supply enough for the growing population, who preferred genetically modified
food to starvation. Also, 20 years of experience with genetically modified food convinced
most people that any initial concerns had been addressed in a transparent way through
ISTO.
The world environment computer simulation (WECS)—from cloud tops to under the
sea—was integrated with the Global Environmental Monitoring System (GEMS) and was
publicly accessible so that anyone could know who was polluting what natural resource
and so that local observers could provide feedback to help improve the system’s causeand-effect calculations. GEMS automatically notified the news media, environmental
NGOs, and relevant legal bodies if the impact according to WECS was sufficient to be
considered an environmental crime. In a similar fashion, patterns of financial transactions
provided early warnings of potential economic problems as well as identifying money
laundering patterns, helping to counter transnational organized crime.
By 2015 global warming had increased weather-related damage and changed agricultural
and disease patters enough that powerful groups of insurance companies and agricultural
industries lobbied for changes, pointing to increasing famines and the AIDS-C pandemic.
Some even brought lawsuits against governments and industries that were the major
greenhouse gas producers—and won. There were some benefits to climate change,
however. For example, the Canadian Northwest Passage became open to shipping, saving
many months of travel through the Panama Canal and adding to the global economy by
opening new trade routes between Japan and Europe. Nevertheless, more comprehensive
international action finally began to seriously address global warming. Hence, cleaner
energy systems received greater attention.
Wireless energy transmission began to connect new geothermal, wind, and solar energy
sources on earth with the orbital power grid via relay satellites and ground receivers. The
orbital power grid was also strengthened with the first five solar power satellites in orbit,
which reduced resources and maintenance per unit of production. The orbital power grind
connected ground electric grids around the world became the largest machine
automatically regulating optimal flows and loads. Nearly 56% of the cars in the world ran
on hydrogen, methanol, electricity, natural gas, or a combination of these. Deepwater
offshore oil and gas wells became electricity exporters. They produced oil and natural
gas to feed power plants at the drilling site, which generated electricity that is beamed to
the orbital power network for global distribution. Such global power access and
distribution kept competition high and prices low. As twentieth-century futurist
Buckminster Fuller predicted, connecting the world’s electric power grids helped to make
a more peaceful world.
Bundles of nanotubes were strong enough to connect satellites in geosynchronous orbit to
earth via “space elevators.” Gondolas of people and equipment were lifted into orbit by
the counterforce of earth-bound loads gliding back down the nanotubes of the space
elevator. These drastically reduced the cost of many space programs. The International
Space Station (ISS)-III that was originally intended to house the space solar power
satellite construction crews was expanded to support construction of tourist hotels,
gravity-free health facilities, and retirement centers. Plans were under way for ISS-IV to
be a mobile space station to supply Mars settlements and experiment with long-term
space flight.
In the twentieth century, economists said that the rising tide lifts all boats; by 2025 the
accepted wisdom was rising TEFs increase all intelligence. Unfortunately not all ethicists
were raised as well, as sometimes the distinctions blurred among competitive business
intelligence, advanced marketing, information warfare, and various forms of organized
crime. Privacy and security of information could not be guaranteed, and attempts to do so
might lead to artificial intelligence beyond humanity’s control. Yet most people seemed
more prepared to accept software’s invasion of privacy than a human’s invasion. Some
others objected to the abuse of CyberNow by governments and companies who attempted
to manipulate consumer behavior. As a result, the “Unplug-and-Relax” movement was
born as an attempt to temporarely retreat from “the system.” This proved more difficult
than it might seem, especially for urban dwellers. They could certainly wear nonCyberNow clothing and unplug from personal computing, but CyberNow was integrated
throughout much of the built environment. As people walked through the cities, their
infrared patterns triggered sensors that played personal audio and video signals to them
from the buildings, making it difficult to “drop out.”
Individuals and software agents crossed political and corporate boundaries in picoseconds, forming new alliances unknown to traditional power structures. Because the
convergence and synergies of genetic engineering, nanotechnology, computational
intelligence, and cognitive sciences improved the human condition for the majority of the
world by 2025, people became more habituated than hostile to such advances. The world
appeared to be moving from political hierarchies to knowledge ecologies that some
speculated might evolve beyond human control.
With nanotechnology integrated in and on human bodies all interconnected with the
various emerging global brains the world was becoming a vast Conscious-Technology.
Humanity and machine seems to evolving together into a set of complex organisms –
some on land, some in space, and some in the ocean. But the quality of such a life was in
doubt. Would humans be functional technocrats with leading what we might call a boring
life? Or would the take the attitudes of mystics to use technology and work as the
“reaction mass” to evolve a more spiritual existence and nobler evolution?
Although religious and political hierarchies still had much ceremonial control and many
social maintenance responsibilities, the real growth of the human mind, technologies, and
actions that were building the future seemed far too complex, self-organized, and creative
to be understood by older institutions. Although evolving global mind and conscioustechnology seem able to overcome previous ethnocentrisms, there was an increasing fear
that biological-human intelligence and even human-computer combinations would
eventually be outstripped by pure computer intelligence. Interconnections of intelligent
software agents acted like group behavior of neurons in the human brain typically
associated with thought. Although constant access to knowledge and feedback systems
increased functional intelligence, and although decision efficiencies seemed to have
improved with increased transparency and feedback for accountability, it was not clear
that humans would have the wisdom to manage affairs in an increasingly complex
civilization. Would the technologies that people created end up managing them, just as
children do when they grow up to take care of their parents in the later years of their life?
Or would human-computer symbioses evolve into a conscious-technology continuum for
peace and plenty? This was the issue of our emerging post-Information age in 2025.
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